Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Bankers are lynxes. To expect any gratitude from them is equivalent to attempting to move the wolves of the Ukraine to pity in the middle of winter.
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A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.
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Narrow minds can develop as well through persecution as through benevolence; they can assure themselves of their power by tyrannizing cruelly or beneficially over others.
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An ugly woman, married to King Henry VIII, would have defied the axe and daunted her husband's infidelities.
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We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are.
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When an intelligent man reaches the point of inviting self-explanation and offers surrendering the key to his heart, he is assuredly riding a drunken horse.
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In all lands, sailors form a race apart. They profess a congenital contempt for landlubbers. As for the tradesman, he understands nothing of sailors nor cares a fig about them. He is content to rob them if he can.
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Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer – Death has never forsaken any man.
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Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.
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A girl fresh from a boarding school may perhaps be a virgin but no! she is never chaste.
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She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered.
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According to man's environment, society has made as many different types of men as there are varieties in zoology. The differences between a soldier, a workman, a statesman, a tradesman, a sailor, a poet, a pauper and a priest, are more difficult to seize, but quite considerable as the differences between a wolf, a lion, an ass, a crow, a sea-calf, a sheep, and so on.
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Thanks to the toleration preached by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century, the sorcerer is exempt from torture.
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You're a fine fastidious young man, as proud as a lion, as gentle as a girl. You'd make a good catch for the devil.
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Hope is a memory that desires, the memory is a memory that has enjoyed.
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In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or no, become the judges of their parents.
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The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.
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Nowhere but in France are people so strictly observant of great matters and so disdainfully indulgent about small ones.
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Generally our confidences move downward rather than upward; in our secret affairs, we employ our inferiors much more than our bettors.
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Above all do not ask that justice be just: It is just, because it is justice. The idea of a just justice could have originated only in the brain of an anarchist.
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How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.
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The boor covers himself, the rich man or the fool adorns himself, and the elegant man gets dressed.
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Admiration bestowed upon any one but ourselves is always tedious.
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The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.